RochesterRob

I'd be happy if we did both. But the point of the thread is until I looked at the standings this morning I had not given much thought to the AFC playoff picture. I just assumed it was down right impossible and I am not kidding myself. It is going to take a lot of work and luck to make it happen.

Nobody said Super Bowl or easy to do. Just get into the playoffs. Competent QB play would tell us the state of the rest of the offense. Maybe Allen will surprise when he is reinstalled but I am not holding my breath on that.

Just looking at the AFC standings. We have two games to play against the second place Dolphins who are only two games ahead of us. Baltimore who owns a tie breaker is only a game and a half ahead. Titans who we own a tie breaker with looks to be firmly in second place in the South. Dark shadow in the silver lining is the Chargers are firmly in second place in the West and uncatchable at this point unless they collapse. Certainly a mountain of work ahead for the Bills and no guarantees of anything but until I looked I expected more gloomy news. With a decent chance at the second Wild Card do we just throw in the towel on playing for today?

The Jets defense is not so bad as to be compared to a preseason effort. The biggest problem I saw is the Jets were anticipating the pop gun offense the Bills had been putting out prior to yesterday and not mentally adjusting to it. To me on most plays Barkley had an internal clock that told him to fire the ball after a couple of seconds to thwart the pass rush regardless if a receiver was in position to catch it. That would explain some of Barkley's non-completions in my mind.

Barkley. You can better assess the needs of the offense this coming offseason this way. If there were fewer questions on that side of the ball then maybe Allen. Right now we know that McDermott has the defense in back of him so I would hate to risk having them quit on him by going back to an impotent O. More to this than building up Allen currently. The Bills get to a point where they are mathematically eliminated from playoffs then put Allen in by all means. With any luck that won't happen until December.

Encouraging but we will have to see if they hold up for the balance of the season.

I see it differently. This offensive showing gave our defense a reason to bring its top effort to the game. I would hate to see McDermott lose the D in the locker room so ride this wave until Barkely comes crashing to earth or the Bills are formally eliminated from the post season. Ideally Allen coming back onto the field would happen with maybe 3 weeks left to the season to get his feet good and wet.

He has a hard lip.

NE is starting to show breaks in the armor. It will be tough but this is not the NE that routinely crushed the AFCE of years past.

Complete with sad piano music?

I had planned on staying out of this discussion but can't ignore putting Trump on par with Merkel or Macron in terms of security risk. I think Trump carries a bullseye on himself with a far far greater number of people versus the European leaders.

Don't need around the clock coverage. I am sure that when they are within a few miles of the border media coverage will ramp up.

You already do each time you get your paycheck from Soros on his cubicle farm just outside of Budapest. Must be a pain seeing as Hungary is on the Euro. I guess the first step of getting the suitcase full of Rubles from Moscow to Budapest is unavoidable.

It's like both of these teams are saying "Darn it. It's all about draft position." Can they pull Joe Fan out of the stands if need be to insure the loss?

The problem has been the People not having the Democrats on their side. Buyer's remorse for these Democrats will be in play by 2020.

I'm thinking that she is getting Capt Pike's "wheel chair" from Star Trek's "The Menagerie."

No doubt. But history has shown time and time again what happens to people who think that the good times will never end. I had hoped she would have lasted just a little longer but now the Democrats will be more desperate and recruit more people in a take down of Trump. The circus that was the Kavanaugh hearing will be nothing compared to what is coming.

Given her political leaning she should have retired early in Obama's second term to have given him a chance to find a replacement.

Ralph has been gone for years (just saying that makes me realize just how old I am). Maybe it is time to move on from things we can't change. I still think adaptable coaches would have made a difference with most of the guys in the period being discussed. Wade Phillips helped Denver win the SB with a thin defense talent-wise aside from Miller and Ware. Stocking a team with 22 starting All Pros just does not happen. At some point it is about the coach making good use of what is in the tool box.

As I understood it Orakpo did not fit the defense we were running at the time. McKinney had question marks in terms of attitude and had a couple off field issues when he was with the Vikings. Not saying Maybin was a great choice and maybe the Bills just should have looked at somebody else. Why worry about what other people think? When you do well there still will be people who will be detractors and we know what happens when an obvious foulup happens. The day when nobody is critical of what a given person does seldom happens. Believe or not put downs existed before the internet and I remember the Bills put down pretty good during the mid-1980's and the same people were singing the team's praises when we were going to the Super Bowl every year. Funny how that works.

I don't wish personal Ill will towards her but maybe it is time to retire. It seldom gets better at advanced age.

Them's fight'n words!!

This is well thought out reasoning which means most of the board will ignore it.

On the surface I would agree that at least with the first rounders we could have done better but none of us were in on the analysis, evaluation, and interviews that put the Bills on the course that they followed with each one. Maybe some of our first rounders would have panned out better if our coaches were more adaptable with players. Wade Phillips generally fields a pretty good defense wherever he goes. Too bad things did not work out differently with Wade for us. He went back to Denver as a DC after some years prior as HC. Maybe he would have been open to coming back here as a DC after a cooling off period. Which would not have been long as the guy always seems laid back. Anyways, I would bet a fair amount is on the coaches we had. Chan seemed to be adaptable and he did a lot with very little talent.

Such is life on the Soros cubicle farm just outside of Budapest.